never said, but I got the feeling she was trying to stay away from some guy.”
“Who?”
“No idea. But that one time when we all went out dancing, we met at my place first for a bite to eat and a little wine. I asked Marianne why she’d quit her job at Ostra, and she said, ‘I couldn’t stand meeting him every day and pretending there was nothing wrong.’ But she didn’t want to talk about it any longer.”
“Did Marianne spend more time with Linda?”
“No. Linda and I hang out together all the time.”
“Does Linda also work ICU?”
“No, she’s in the care ward.”
“But not right now.”
“No, Ellen works here for the morning shift.”
“Do you know when Linda will be coming in to work?”
“She starts the evening shift, at two o’clock.”
They were interrupted when the steel-plated door opened and a rolling bed with a still-slightly-groggy patient was wheeled in. An operating-room nurse wearing a green uniform, a paper cap, and a mask said mechanically, “First colon. The gastro will be here soon.”
Nurse Anna-Karin flew from the stool. Both nurses flipped busily through the paperwork, mumbling to each other over the drowsy patient.
Irene decided it was time to find Nurse Ellen and Doris Peterzen.
IRENE FOUND THE recent widow in the empty nurses’ office. Doris Peterzen sat ramrod straight, her fingers laced in her lap. She’d taken off her hat and placed it on the desk but kept on her elegant coat. Irene paused in the doorway for a moment, considering whether she should question Doris Peterzen now or wait awhile. Perhaps it was too soon. On the other hand, Irene felt that Doris had the right to know about the events of the night before.
The widow turned her beautiful face toward Irene and said tiredly, “Nurse Ellen had to release a patient or something like that. She’ll be right back.”
“That’s good. I have to speak with her, but you need to know what happened here at the hospital last night.”
Irene tried to be tactful, but when Doris Peterzen heard about the murder, she lost her composure and began to cry. Irene did not know how to comfort her. She got up to close the door in order not to disturb the other patients and then sat down next to the weeping woman. Tentatively, she rested her hand on Doris’s shoulder. It didn’t seem to help.
When Nurse Ellen returned to the office, she took only one glance at Doris and said, “She needs a taxi home. I’ll call for one.”
Irene nodded. She bent closer to Doris and asked, “Should I contact your family? Anyone in particular? Your children?”
Doris could hardly speak but managed to say, “Gor—Goran. He’s … not home. London … He’s in London.”
FOR THE REST of the morning, the police interviewed the day-shift staff, one by one. Then there was a break for the officers to grab a quick lunch. It wouldn’t be until two o’clock in the afternoon when the evening shift arrived.
Superintendent Andersson and Irene found a pizza place on Virginsgatan. They sat at a tiny table at the back, grateful that they didn’t have to eat their pizza and near beer in the car. In low voices they went over what they’d gotten from that morning’s work. Obviously Nurse Siv’s tale of a ghost nurse was more than odd. Irene had no idea whom or what the nurse had actually seen, but she hypothesized that the “ghost” had really been the murderer. Perhaps, in the old nurse’s frightened state and overactive imagination, the figure she’d seen had been coupled with the ghost story. That seemed the most likely.
Irene’s boss nodded and grunted, his mouth full. He attacked his pizza vigorously, snapping the flimsy plastic fork in half. He turned around to ask the pizza baker behind the counter for another and realized that the man had been leaning over the counter and listening, enthralled, to their conversation. The superintendent swallowed his rage and his opinions of eavesdroppers. It had been his own fault; the pizza parlor was much too small for this type of discussion. “Let’s go!” Andersson barked, his face flaming red as he stared into the pizza baker’s friendly smile. But he stopped halfway in his march out to turn back and snatch up the rest of his pizza.
• • •
THEY DROVE TO Harlanda Lake. Irene hoped that a dose of fresh air would clear their thoughts and a nice walk would settle the pizza in their stomachs.
They parked the car and walked into a nature scene covered with ice crystals. Irene stomped on the rock- hard ground. “This cold snap gives us a big problem. It was thirty below last night. The ground around the hospital is frozen solid and won’t leave any footprints or traces. And there’s no snow either.”
“True. I wonder if Malm has found anything inside the building. He’s due in tomorrow morning at roll call.”
“Perhaps Stridner will find something in the autopsy this afternoon.”
Andersson’s face darkened reflexively. He was unaware, as always, that this happened whenever Yvonne Stridner’s name was mentioned.
“I’ll call her. No rest for the wicked.” He sighed.
They walked in silence along the perimeter of the iced-over lake. A weak sun managed to get a few meager rays through the thin clouds, sending a cascade of glitter across the icy surface. The chill bit at their noses and cheeks. Irene took a deep breath. For a moment she imagined that the crisp, sharp air she drew into her lungs was totally pure and clean, like the air near her parents-in-laws’ summer cabin deep in the forests of Varmland. But she was jolted away from her daydream by the superintendent’s voice.
“Time to go back. The evening shift will be in soon.”
THE EVENING SHIFT worked the care ward and the ICU only until nine-thirty, when the night shift took over.
“Will Siv Persson be working tonight?” the superintendent asked.
“No,” Nurse Ellen said. “Before she went home today, she asked for time off. We’ve found a substitute. But it looks like there’s no one to take over from me.” Her voice was tired and worried.
“What about Linda?” asked Irene.
“Yes, she was supposed to come in at two. Now it’s almost two-thirty. I’ve just called her place, but no one’s picking up.”
“What’s Linda’s last name?”
“Svensson.”
“Does she have a family?”
“She lives with a guy, but he doesn’t seem to be home. I just hope there hasn’t been some kind of accident. Linda always bikes to work.”
“Even at thirty below?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I see. I guess we will just have to wait until she comes in. We can probably talk to the nurse on duty at the ICU for now,” Irene suggested to her boss.
“You go do that,” was the chief inspector’s immediate reply. “I’ll wait for Linda here. And I also want another chat with Nurse Ellen. If that’s all right with you, Nurse Ellen?”
“Well … sure. It’ll be no trouble at all if Linda shows up. But right now I’m the only one on the care ward and there’s a lot to do.”
